art+design— The definition of both art and design has been argued over since the early 1900s. For the purpose of this thesis, the author has chosen to define art as subjective visual expression–unless expressed otherwise–that originates from the maker, resulting in a visual and dimensional outcome. Design exists within this realm in that makers are subjectively utilizing the visual language of color and form through the act of image making. However its intention is to serve as the embodiment of content, which stands for an idea, a message, or information that may not be derived from its maker. In addition, design bears the added responsibility of function and delivery that creates its own classes of methods and modes, the prime example being graphic design and media design. Both are practices that fulfill the parameter of design. However, they differ in historical context and approach. As the author’s background is in both graphic and media design, the word ‘design’ is used to encompass both practices. science— In a similar vein, the breadth of science is vast and innumerable in its branches, subdivisions, and specialties that it would be quite impossible to continue without noting that the author defines science to mean the fields of knowledge or study that is concerned with the natural or physical world gained through observation and experimentation. formal— qualities related to form. system+structure— Implementation of hierarchy and order. Both terms are frequently used throughout neurographica. Part of the reason is because as a designer, it was one of the metaphorical ways I could conceptualize how design could extend towards the programming environment. Designing a system for visualizations could be thought of in the same vein as designing the layout of a poster, where visual elements would operate, behave, or perform in a directed manner. This idea is not entirely new. However, within the programming environment, designers are now involved at the level of code, structuring the framework for content. There have been two people who have been highly influential in my own personal view in this respect, Daniel Gross of Catalogtree and Luna Maurer. Both are adamant believers that design involves the digital and philosophical substructure or frame from which content emerges or is made evident. design (again)— Central to this project, is the question of “design” itself. In the sciences – especially in the United States – the culture of pragmatism, objectivity and empiricism can be unwelcoming to what may seem at a glance are the “unnecessary” contributions of design. Considering how good design can tangibly improve the “objective” fields of science and engineering prompts a reminder that considerations inherent to any process of design– order, harmony, hierarchy, systems, scale, color – are evidence of health, of “correctness.” Notwithstanding the anachronistic associations some of these connections of order and harmony with “beauty” and “correctness” may have in the broader culture at large - within the sciences, a revisited alignment of these qualities as the primary purview of Design repositions Design not as a process of making order or harmony, but revealing it. [1]